


The Thing You Want Most

by Cogentranting



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark One Captain Hook | Killian Jones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22708213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cogentranting/pseuds/Cogentranting
Summary: A character study of Killian's time as the Dark One.
Kudos: 3





	The Thing You Want Most

The Darkness tasted like rum. As soon as Killian had a moment to reflect, that was his overwhelming impression. Even then, a scrap of lucidity told him that the description had a tinge of madness to it. But for years to come the thought would stay with him, surfacing whenever he remembered his encounter with the Darkness, but never spoken aloud. But, oh it was so accurate.

His first moments being overtaken by the Darkness fell parallel to his first sip of rum; the taste burned and everything within him recoiled in revulsion. But the rum was the mistake of boy too young to know better– a mistake that could be jerked away and spit out in a fit of coughing. The Darkness felt more like the same boy was being held down and the rum poured down his throat, til he thought he might drown. 

When Killian first stepped from the Vault, some deep part of him recognized the way the world was tilting. He’d spent enough time drunk in his youth to know that it was he who had changed and the world was no more hostile than before. He tried to hold to that thought and to guide himself with what he knew the world to be. But knowing how the Darkness worked did not stop It from sinking Its claws deeper. 

His mind was staggering drunk. Each thought had more force than it ought and nearly sent him sprawling. His emotions spiked madly. The sight of the Crocodile in apparition form filled him with a rage so intense and unrelenting that it hurt. And Emma. His love for her was muddled, hidden behind the screaming pain and anger of her betrayal. The voice of reason tried to be heard, to tell him she’d done it out of love, that the Darkness was affecting her, asking him what he wouldn’t have done to save her or Liam or Milah. But reason appears as madness to the mad and it was swept aside in the maelstrom of his mind. All made worse by the unremitting cycle of memories paraded before him by the Darkness: every injury and indignity, every loss, every separation, every betrayal. 

But when he gave in and did what the Darkness wanted, It rewarded him with exhilaration such as he had never known. When he killed Merlin, enacted the curse, taunted Rumpelstiltskin, fought the duel, resurrected the Dark Ones… Oh, the delicious high. The painful memories receded in a dizzying rush of giddiness and energy. The present became laced with the sharp white contrast of frenetic glee. If he couldn’t quite make out the edges of reality, it was worth it for the release he hadn’t felt in centuries. Killian craved it. All he had to do was what the Darkness wanted. 

And It wanted so little. One small command repeated over and over in the echoes of his mind: _Take what you want_. It was the same refrain from the moment the Darkness came flooding in. _I can give you what you want, here’s the power, now all you have to do is TAKE it_. 

It was a confusing voice, easy enough to resist, at first. Killian had enough to deal with– the onslaught of memories, the churning emotions, the sword calling to him louder than his own thoughts– without worrying about the incomprehensible voice in his head. Then he felt it. He heard Emma’s voice (that strange deep voice she spoke in now, almost a stranger’s) as she summoned him. His will was stripped away. His own magic pulled him to her, like a dog yanked back mid-leap by a chain round its neck. Choking him. And for a second he felt terror. 

The terror of a man enslaved to a monster who would force him to harm the woman he loves. The terror of a young man finding himself in service of the king responsible for the death of his family. The terror of a teenager enslaved by a tyrant captain. The terror of a young boy sold into servitude by the father who had promised him a future. The terror of being trapped. The terror of being powerless. 

In that second, Killian understood the voice. _Take what you want, because you must. Or they will take it from you. You are not free. You’ve never been free. They will not allow it. They will only lie to you and control you. Freedom comes from power and you can never have enough to truly be free. Not while you allow those who oppose you to live. But if you will listen to me, I can give you what you want._

From that moment, Killian began to listen. He bent to the will of the Darkness, reaped the rewards, and felt himself free as he succumbed to its power. Because It would give him what he wanted. And what did he want? He wasn’t sure. The world would not be still or silent enough for him to make it out clearly. He would catch glimpses. A stray thought that it might be Emma, only to have the Darkness send her betrayals screaming through his mind. An idea of honor crossed his mind as he stood with drawn sword over the fallen Rumpelstiltskin, but the demonic Crocodile appeared hissing at his back. The sight of Emma’s family stirred some notion of something vaguer, but it was drowned out in memories of loss and rejection. What did he want. What did he want. His senses would not silence, the world would not be still, his mind would not clear enough for him to see. So he settled for what the Darkness offered. Revenge first and then… Then the next lie.

 _The redemption they offer is a lie. They couldn’t love you. Not even your father could. They just want to control you. To use you. To bind you. You cannot be free. You will not be free. Not while they stand in your way. Not while they live. Don’t deny your beautiful destruction: raze the Earth and when they are dead you will be free. Let me help. Let me release your purging fire. Let me give you what you want._ And beneath the words lay the aching, pulsing memory of waking one night to find himself a slave. 

When Killian listened, the world darkened, becoming a hazy, drunken, blur of giddy pain and longing. He acted. Hardly aware what he was doing. Sometimes his actions were soaked in rage. Sometimes in perverse delight. Sometimes he felt nothing at all. And he found himself, standing at the lake, Emma and her family before him, the Dark Ones behind him, his face marred with a sneering grin he did not control.

Of all people, Regina said something that pierced the haze, “what you did to your father… what kind of man do you want to be?” The chorus took up again in a feverish drone, _what do you want what do whatdoyouwantwhatdoyouwant_ and he saw a mingled vision of the sea captain telling him what his father had done and his knife burying in his father’s stomach. But his heart hardened with frustration and anger and guilt as tendrils of Darkness caressed his soul.

Until Emma threw herself in Nimue’s path. Killian felt Nimue’s contented malice through their connection. For a moment more he neither shared it, nor repulsed it. Emma’s pained eyes met his and he saw love. And that love was strong. Love for the family she would suffer and die for, and love for him. Love which was did not plead or beg, but silently urged him to be more. 

Though the night had replayed in his minds countless times through the centuries, it had been many years since Killian had thought about what came before his abandonment. He had awoken, frightened by darkness. His father had come in with a lantern, comforted him and asked him what kind of man he wanted to be. To which young Killian had responded, “I want to be just like you.” This memory coalesced with another, this one much closer. He had turned his ship around, back toward the doomed Storybrooke, back toward Emma. He’d told Emma that she’d reminded him that he could care about something other than himself. Had he been more introspective in that moment he might have recognized what Emma had truly reminded him of. 

When she stood with the doomed town and she stood in front of her doomed family, Emma Swan had reminded Killian why he had once wanted to be just like his father, what that had meant to him. That night, his father had been the one to protect him, to come in with a lantern to stand between him and the darkness. That was what he had first seen in Emma, what he had first loved. She was the person who threw herself between the evil and the helpless, a beacon of light to chase away darkness. And twice now, she had woken the heart of him that longed for that. And Killian new what it was he wanted. 

That realization broke the hold of the Darkness and love reignited. Love for Emma and love for her family, a roaring inferno drowning out the pain and the lies the Darkness had strangled him with. 

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Being the man I want to be.”

Excalibur raised up like a beacon. He pulled the Darkness into the blade, trapping and containing it. Though he feared what he was about to do, his mind was clear and his heart steady. Something within him that had been broken long before the Darkness came was now restored. As he held the sword that kept the Darkness at bay, Killian felt more truly himself than ever before. When he held out the sword to her, Emma joined him in the moment of restoration, and the two were united again. United as she ran the sword through his chest. In fear and pain and death, Killian felt triumph. 

For Killian Jones died as the man he wanted to be: a blazing light, driving back the Darkness.


End file.
